Equipping & Encouraging Sunday School and Small Group Leaders

Guests, gaps, and groups – Mind the Gaps

Mind the gap

Your Bible study group is designed to reach a certain kind of person. I teach a group especially designed to reach empty nest adults. My target audience is somewhere between 45-59 years of age. The people have older, grown children. My target audience is not single adults, nor young adults, nor senior adults. If someone visits our church in this age range and demographic, they are brought to my group. If I see a visitor in our worship service who appears to be in my target audience, I strike up a conversation and invite them to my group. In fact, I can enroll anyone, anywhere, who fits the demographic of my Bible study group.

Mind the Gap

As a leader in your church’s groups ministry, be sure you have a place for every person to attend Bible study – a place that fits their age and life stage. This means you must pay careful attention to the “gaps” in your Bible study groups. Ask yourself, “If a young college student wanted to attend Bible study, would we have a good option for him?” In a similar way, you must be sure that all kinds of people have options in your Sunday School ministry. Where are the gaps in yours? Do you have groups for:

Single moms

Men

Women

Younger married adults with no kids

College students

Single adults (younger)

Single adults (older)

Parents of preschoolers

Parents of grade school children

Parents of students (how about parents of junior high or high school students?)

You get the idea. Make sure that you have all the bases covered so that when a guest tries to plug into a Bible study group, you have a great option for them.